INTO THE VALLEY……

I often harp on about how  certain pieces of music insistently run through my head when I find myself photographing  particular things in  particular places.

Sometimes the link is tenuous, sometimes there’s no explainable link at all and sometimes, as was the case here, it’s completely literal….A no-brainer link!

So with sonic suitability thrown out of the window, the pounding drums and gut-punch guitar of The Skid’s “Into the Valley” accompanied me for the whole of my walk along the valley floor beside the Rio Castril to one of it’s two sources at The Magdalena falls…(two sources??? I know, that’s what I thought…).

Anti-war punk anthems and natural beauty like you see above…Strange bed fellows?…

But, the Altiplano, not even a hundred years ago, was an area in direct conflict with Franco’s fascists, and though the bullets did finally stop, punitive taxation by the victorious regime left the area, so agriculturally strong, surprisingly poor…..

So…

No apologies….

It may seem like paradise now, but even paradise can find a place for a Punk poet perspective.

Turn the inner head speakers up to eleven….

Count yourself in…..

1-2-3-4…..

Into the valley
Betrothed and divine
Realisations no virtue
But who can define
Why soldiers go marching
Those masses a line
This disease is catching
From victory to stone
Ahoy! ahoy! land, sea and sky
Ahoy! ahoy! boy, man and soldier
Ahoy! ahoy! deceived and then punctured
Ahoy! ahoy! long may they die
Out of concealment
Blank and stark eyed
Why so uncertain
This culture deceives
Prophesised, brainwashed
Tomorrow’s demise
All systems failing
The placards unroll
Ahoy! ahoy! land, sea and sky
Ahoy! ahoy! boy, man and soldier
Ahoy! ahoy! deceived and then punctured
Ahoy! ahoy! long may they die
Time for the audit
The gathering trial
A collector’s dilemma
Repositioned and filed

As ever click the image to open in a new window…The extra res makes it worth it I hope.

All Images Copyright Stuart Allan Hyde